Parry writes: "As the Ukraine crisis continues to deepen, the mainstream U.S. news media is sinking to new lows of propaganda and incompetence."

Right Sektor activists in the Maidan square in Kiev, Ukraine, on Feb. 22, 2014, the day of the coup. (photo: Mstyslav Chernov/Unframe)

Mainstream US Media Is Lost in Ukraine

By Robert Parry, Consortium News

17 March 14

s the Ukraine crisis continues to deepen, the mainstream U.S. news media is sinking to new lows of propaganda and incompetence. Somehow, a violent neo-Nazi-spearheaded putsch overthrowing a democratically elected president was refashioned into a “legitimate” regime, then the “interim” government and now simply “Ukraine.”

The Washington Post’s screaming headline on Sunday is “Ukraine decries Russian ‘invasion,’” treating the coup regime in Kiev as if it speaks for the entire country when it clearly speaks for only a subset of the population, mostly from western Ukraine. The regime’s “legitimacy” comes not from a democratic election but from a coup that was quickly embraced by the U.S. government and the European Union.

Objective U.S. journalists would insist on a truthful narrative that conveys these nuances to the American people, not simply behave as clumsy propagandists determined to glue “white hats” on the side favored by the State Department and “black hats” on everyone that the U.S. government disdains. But virtually the entire mainstream press corps has opted for the propaganda role, much as it has in the past. Think Iraq 2002-03.

You also might remember the mainstream media’s rush to judgment over the Sarin attack in Syria on Aug. 21, 2013. The State Department rashly blamed the incident on the Syrian government despite serious doubts inside the U.S. intelligence community.

To conceal those dissents, the State Department and the White House issued a four-page “Government Assessment,” rather than a National Intelligence Estimate from the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies. That would have had to include footnotes revealing disagreements over the evidence among the analysts.

When the “Government Assessment” was posted online at the White House Web site on Aug. 30, it contained not a single piece of evidence that could be independently checked. That same day, Secretary of State John Kerry gave a nearly hysterical speech that sounded like a declaration of war. He insisted that the U.S. government had conclusive proof of the Syrian government’s guilt but he just couldn’t reveal any.

The U.S. press corps showed virtually no skepticism about the U.S. government’s case. Only a few Web sites, including Consortiumnews.com, noted the lack of verifiable proof and the absence of U.S. intelligence officials during the presentations, including none sitting behind Kerry when he made the rounds of congressional hearings.

The evidence regarding the Syrian government guilt apparently was so flimsy that no U.S. intelligence official wanted to play the role of CIA Director George Tenet who popped up behind Secretary of State Colin Powell during his deceptive speech on Feb. 5, 2003, asserting a definitive case that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction.

But the dog-not-barking in the missing intelligence officials on Syria was ignored by the big media. Instead, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other major news outlets reprised their Iraq War roles.

The Vector Analysis

In September, the Times even fronted a story – by C.J. Chivers and Rick Gladstone – asserting that it had established Syrian government guilt for the Sarin attack, much as a 2002 Times story reported that Iraq’s purchase of aluminum tubes was proof of a secret nuclear program. That Times story became the basis for President George W. Bush and his top aides scaring the American people with warnings about “mushroom clouds.”

The Chivers-Gladstone story cited the azimuths (or the reverse flight paths) of two Sarin-laden rockets intersecting at a Syrian military base northwest of Damascus, the “slam-dunk” proof of Syrian guilt, making those of us who raised questions about lack of evidence look stupid.

But both Times stories – the one in 2002 and the one in 2013 – collapsed under scrutiny. The Iraqi aluminum tubes, it turned out, were unfit for nuclear centrifuges (and the U.S. invasion force later determined that Iraq had no active nuclear program), and the intersecting azimuths proved false because only one of the two rockets contained Sarin and its maximum range was around 2.5 kilometers, according to scientific analyses, not the necessary 9.5 kilometers for the two azimuths to cross.

So, in December 2013, three months after the Times ran its front-page “vector analysis,” Chivers got the assignment to write a grudging retraction, though the admission of his error was mumbled in the 18th paragraph of a story stuck deep inside the newspaper. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “NYT Backs Off Its Syria-Sarin Analysis.”]

Because the retraction was “buried,” however, much of Official Washington still thinks the earlier story, supposedly proving the Syrian government’s guilt, is operational. That’s why you see politicians, like Sen. John McCain, accusing President Barack Obama of cowardice for failing to bomb Syria after it crossed his “red line” against using chemical weapons.

You’ve had a similar rush to judgment in connection with the violence that broke out in Kiev last month. The U.S. government and news media blamed lethal sniper fire on the government of President Viktor Yanukovych and – after he was driven from office by a neo-Nazi-led putsch on Feb. 22 – the U.S. media made much of how the new rump regime in Kiev had accused Yanukovych of mass murder.

However, according to an intercepted phone conversation between Estonia’s Foreign Minister Urmas Paet and European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, Paet reported on a conversation that he had with a doctor in Kiev who said the sniper fire that killed protesters was the same that killed police officers.

As reported by the UK Guardian, “During the conversation, Paet quoted a woman named Olga – who the Russian media identified her as Olga Bogomolets, a doctor – blaming snipers from the opposition shooting the protesters.”

Paet said, “What was quite disturbing, this same Olga told that, well, all the evidence shows that people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides.

“So she also showed me some photos, she said that as medical doctor, she can say it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it’s really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don’t want to investigate what exactly happened. … So there is a stronger and stronger understanding that behind snipers it was not Yanukovych, it was somebody from the new coalition.”

This important evidence regarding who was responsible for the crucial sniper fire, which sparked the violent coup, has been virtually blacked out of the mainstream U.S. news media, along with the sudden disinterest on the part of the coup regime to investigate who committed those murders. Yet, instead of repairing the rotting foundation of Official Washington’s false narrative, the major news organizations just keep building upon it.

Whiting Out the Brown Shirts

The next step is to white-out the brown shirts of the neo-Nazi storm troopers who led the final violent overthrow of Yanukovych. Then, you clean up the unsavory coup regime by having its U.S.-chosen leader, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, receive a formal welcome at the White House. Next, you pretend that the concerns of the ethnic Russians in Ukraine’s east and south are simply the result of Moscow’s propaganda and intimidation.

That’s what we’re seeing now. The New York Times even dispatched correspondent C.J. Chivers, the same guy who falsely fingered the Syrian government with that “vector analysis” last September, to co-author a dispatch entitled “Pressure and Intimidation Grip Crimea,” with the subtitle, “Russia Moves Swiftly to Stifle Dissent Ahead of Secession Vote.”

Chivers and co-author Patrick Reevel wrote: “With a mix of targeted intimidation, an expansive military occupation by unmistakably elite Russian units and many of the trappings of the election-season carnivals that have long accompanied rigged ballots across the old Soviet world, Crimea has been swept almost instantaneously into the Kremlin’s fold.

“This has happened well ahead of the referendum set for Sunday, after which, barring an extraordinary surprise, the peninsula’s interim authorities, led by a previously unsuccessful politician nicknamed the Goblin, will announce that its citizens have voted to leave Ukraine and seek a place in President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia.”

You get the picture? While the New York Times accepted the rump parliament’s actions in Kiev last month as “legitimate” – voting in lock step under the watchful of eye of neo-Nazi militias to depose Yanukovych and strip away rights of ethnic Russians – a different standard will apply to Crimea’s referendum on bailing out of the failed Ukrainian state.

That vote, if it favors secession, must be seen as rigged and resulting only from Russian coercion, all the better to continue the false narrative that now dominates the U.S. political/media process.

Yet, the danger of false narratives – as the American people saw in Iraq and almost revisited in Syria – is that policies, including warfare, can be driven by myth, not by fact. The real story of Ukraine is far more complex than the black-and-white caricature that the New York Times, the Washington Post and others are presenting. It is in the truthful grays that responsible policies are shaped and bloody miscalculations are avoided.

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"the danger of false narratives .." is responsible for the bad decisions. Two examples from Yahoo "news":Russia can turn U.S. to radioactive ash: Kremlin-backed journalistBy Lidia Kelly MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Kremlin-backed journalist issued a stark warning to the United States about Moscow's nuclear capabilities on Sunday as the White House threatened sanctions over Crimea's referendum on union with Russia. "Russia is the only country in the world that is…ReutersPoorObama Has 4 Days to Stop Putinnews.yahoo.com/obama-5-days-stop-putin-094831705--politics.htmllived in the totalitarian country - propaganda as news destroyed CCCP - is destroying/destroyed USA. Just look at military expenses/waste - USA like 40%, Russia 4% of the World spending - did Russia learned the lesson? Will USA ever learn?

A little overstatement here: for instance, I have not seen anyone on NBC evening news say anything but that the Crimea vote would go Russia's way because of the Russian and Russian-speaking majority there. And when it went that way, nobody suggested the election numbers were "rigged". Plus, does anybody (but you?) doubt that those were Russian troops in the anonymous uniforms and black face masks?

Does the mainstream press make errors? Do they push one point of view over others at times? Undoubtedly. But don't you do the same?

If it's the "truthful grays" that lead to the best policies, why don't you explain them to us instead of lacerating your colleagues on the big papers? Better to have "responsible policies" than more all-too-easy-to-do media criticism.

The media is all misinformation and disinformation on this topic. I watched it in the beginning and they whitewash all the Nazi Fascists destroying a democracy as if they are the good guys. The lies are horrendous and continue on every news broadcast. It's the worst obfuscation of a blatant truth that I've seen recently, totally disgusting. The news in Amerika is all fascist and terrorist supported by the fascist terrorist regime of dubya and Obama. It's horrible what the news says - all lies basically. And when I saw Obama the lying coward meeting the new fascist Nazi that removed the democratically elected Kuznyetsov, I thought how typical of Obama the War Criminal to support Nazis, like amerika has done for decades now. Obama is just another one of the amerikan Nazis. Obama is a coward and liar compared to Adolf Hitler who at least admitted what he was doing. Obama hides behind lies and cuteness. Obama and the corporate news do not deserve to exist.

First of all, America is spelled with a "c" not a "k". Secondly, the Ukranian (THAT is spelled with a "k")people where not allowed to vote whether or not they wanted Crimea to remain Ukranian or become part of Russia. They were only allowed to vote as to whether or not Crimea should become part of Russia or become autominous. And, let's not forget, Russia GAVE Crimea to the Ukrains it was NOT forcebly taken away from Russia. However, there were Russian soldiers carrying Russian made guns in Russian tanks all over Crimea during the "referandum".As for your comments regarding President Obama, they are not only childish but show your total lack of any understanding what true facism is.....GROW UP!!!

"Secondly, the Ukranian (THAT is spelled with a "k")people where not allowed to vote whether or not they wanted Crimea to remain Ukranian or become part of Russia. They were only allowed to vote as to whether or not Crimea should become part of Russia or become autominous."1 - Spelling: Ukrainian autonomous2 - vote:

90% + in REFERENDUM choose Russia with 80% + participation. The question were: “Do you support reunifying Crimea with Russia as a subject of the Russian Federation?” The second question:“Do you support the restoration of the 1992 Crimean constitution and the status of Crimea as a PART of Ukraine?”

A little overstatement here....does anybody (but you?) doubt that those were Russian troops in the anonymous uniforms and black face masks? .....

Good points. It is sad that we can actually trust almost no sources of data anymore.

While I have no problem accepting the gist of what the author asserts simply from past experience with both U.S. Government and U.S. Military shenanigans, the author weakens his own case with hear-say and even frivolous quotes from the likes of "Olga...(no last name)" who claims to be a medical doctor, and asserting that: "['Olga']... said that as medical doctor, she can say it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets....."

Really ? Since when does medical training involve courses in both handwriting analysis (which is *far* from being a science) and ballistics (which is only slightly better)?

I can accept a statement holding that all bullets *looked* the same, and that it *appears* to be the same handwriting, but to claim it as an incontrovertible *FACT*, and to base that claim on a self-reported background, that, even if accurate, has *NOTHING* to *do* with the claims at hand ? (e.g., "As an auto mechanic, I can tell you *all about* interpreting Ancient Babylonian manuscripts ....)

Caliban is correct. If we are to analyze mainstream media with a critical eye (which we most definitely must), this author likewise needs to present a more well ordered and convincing case.

Haven't you read the continuing stream of Parry's articles here which cover all aspects of the Ukrainian-Crimean situation? They point out dozens of facts which are not mentioned at all in the US media, and which can be verified in various overseas media. Whatever the actual facts are, there seems no doubt that most American media are ignoring a great number of them which do not fit the government agenda.

I agree that Parry, in countered propaganda, has indulged a bit himself. I will give two examples, but first. I doubt that prior to the referendum there were significant numbers of Russian troops outside the permitted bases. Dempsey (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) was insisted he knew a Russian soldier when he saw one. But when pressed he acknowledged -- on March 4th!-- that he had no evidence. If the largest military 'intelligence' operation in the world has no evidence, then it is hardly a surprise that news reporters are clueless. I strongly suspect that the hard-to-accept truth is that the self-defense forces established by the Crimean parliament three weeks before the change in leadership, mobilized a large number of former Ukrainian and Soviet soldier very quickly. I also suspect that they received assistance from the Russian -- weapons, vehicles, training, etc. The Russians are also acting as advisers, especially since they have a strong interest in ensuring conflict does not breakout.If you think you and Chairman Dempsey know your soldiers, take a look at this document (which long predates the crisis). http://www.strikehold.net/2010/02/07/21st-century-camo-uniforms-the-rest-of-the-world/ Now are you so sure?OK, now for the criticisms:(1) Parry must know that the PM has not signed into law the anti-Russian-language bill. Neither has he vetoed it, but it still merits mentioning.Point (2) doesn't fit here. See next posting.

(2) Parry must know that when the Telegraph interviewed Dr. Olga, she denied even being in a position to know what the police wounds were like. She may have been intimidated into changing her story, but it might also be true that the Estonia Fm got it wrong in the his place. Worthy of a mention, no?There is much else to quibble with here, but on the whole Parry asked some good questions -- can he answer those questions himself?

Write Vladimir Putin at this address to congratulate him on his helping the Crimea and humiliating Obama. Putin did the right thing. The Crimea is in the Russian orbit of language, culture and influence. Obama is wrong and to be despised for his warmongering a good person who is helping his people: Vladimir Putin, The Kremlin, 23, Ilyinka St., Moscow 103132 Russia. Oh, by the way, copy the NSA, CIA, FBI, Obama, and the news channels on your letter. I did. Putin is way ahead of us on doing the right thing here. Obama is way behind and is doing the wrong thing, as usual. And I could give a rat's ass as to what these fascist agencies in the regime think of my letter. I'm certain it'll never reach Putin considering the overwhelming control they have now over our acts, thoughts (witness: the corporate news that Caliban promotes here) and words. By the way, articles have been published in many internet news sources the past 2 days regarding the lies of the amerikan corporate news. You'll find an article criticizing them the same way this article does on almost every honest news source now. And all are accurate, right on the money.

Agree - if anybody does not see the mass media censorship/propaganda - just look at the negative propaganda Olympic Winter Games and XI Paralympic Winter Games of 2014 in Sochi ...We live in the age of propaganda - and Parry criticism of money controlled corporate media is right on.

Indian Weaver, if you're going to accuse anyone of war-mongering it should be Putin. Ask any Georgian they'll tell you "peace loving" he is. But no, it's so much easier to call President Obama names and throw accusations at him because you can. And the reason you can is because you're not living in a country like Russia. See how long you'd last throwing these accusations around about Putin.

Dear corporate owned media, A new "cold war," my butt. This is a new world order battle of the oligarchs who can't be bothered with anything so sentimental and antiquated as a love for the nation state. See: "Corporate Interests Behind Ukraine Putsch" ... - Politix - Topix http://politix.topix.com/story/u14302-corporate-interests-behind-ukraine-putsch-consortiumnews.

90% + in REFERENDUM choose Russia with 80% + participation. The question were: “Do you support reunifying Crimea with Russia as a subject of the Russian Federation?” The second question will be “Do you support the restoration of the 1992 Crimean constitution and the status of Crimea as a part of Ukraine?”

No one is in the right here. Russia is a viscious oligarchy, the Ukraine is beset by more viscous Oligarchs, the west is riding to Obamas trumpet stirring up mistrust and fear. Has anyone considered the average Ukraine or Crimea citizen in this whole orchestrated debacle?Pigs arse they have - as usual, the inhabitants of the country become irritating pawns in the power politics of 2 Imperial nations playing silly buggers!

Freedom of the press has turned into freedom to suppress and it is giving the few honest and hard-working journalists a very bad name. They say that truth is the very first casualty of war - if this is so, then the US must be at war for a long time already. Lies, lies and more lies just about anything.Sanctifying the lie, demonizing the truth.

Take another example Parry could have cited -- the oft-repeated lie in the media of a Russian troop mobilization on the border of Ukraine. The Russians have opened Russian air space for overflights by Ukraine, so they could see for themselves if there are troops massed for an invasion.

The other major point ignored by the media is the relationship of outstanding, overdue debt owed by Ukraine, mostly to EU country banks, and the insistence that the IMF be brought in by the coup regime, to impose brutal austerity to pay the debt. The IMF, in internal documents, has admitted that the policies imposed by the Troika -- EU, European Central Bank, and IMF -- on Greece, has made things worst. Does anyone think an IMF austerity regime against Ukraine will improve the lives of the people of Ukraine?

The EU banking system is in an advanced state of collapse. Gordon Brown, former UK Prime Minister, said the situation is heading for a crash bigger than in Sept. 2008.

This is what is behind the coup in Ukraine. Russia has rejected opening its economy to western banks, given the disaster which ensued under Yeltsin. A fascist coup in Ukraine is part of a bankers' dictatorship, to collect debt while impoverishing the people. The new, putsch-installed Parliament in Ukraine is preparing a 50% cut in pensions!

And the U.S. Goebbels-style media calls the new government, which came to power through force of arms, legitimate!

As Robert Parry so well summarized in the last paragraph, the "danger of false narratives.....can be driven by myth, not by fact." Such has become the rule rather than the exception as we saw in "Iraq has WMD's" and "Mission accomplished."

Time for people to wake up and not rely on corporate media that is owned and operated by those who lobby and profit from misleading the country. More importantly, the USA has already over-spent on war and military. It's time to butt out and focus on "the land of the (not so) free."

The article should have also pointed out that according to UKs Daily Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10677370/Ukraine-Russia-crisis-live.html) the same Olga Bogomolets denied she siad the same kind of bullets killed police and demonstrators. Even if the Telegraph in inaccurate, how can a surgeon/doctor tell if the bullets came from same source without forensic eveidence about which she has no expertise.Mr. Parry what you calim is possible and even probable but it is not a fact.

1) Ukraine is not majority Russian, mostly Russian or even significantly Russian. The actual figure is about 17% Russian in a population of 46 million. In the 2001 Ukrainian census, 8,334,100 identified as ethnic Russians (17.3% of the population),.[1]2) Kiev is not "in the West" of Ukraine. Please look at a map. Its smack dab in the north-center. 3) Ukrainians are not mostly neo-Nazis, the new government is not a "neo-Nazi" coup, those who oppose Putin are not Nazis. Mr Parry calls anyone he dislikes neo-Nazi.4) Putin is not a "reasonable" man and the Russian push inside Ukraine is not a democratic movement for liberation from fascism. It is just what it appears: an invasion by masked, unmarked troops, 5) Most astounding are the claims that Ukraine is not a real country,and that it somehow belongs to Russia. Try telling that to millions of Ukrainian-Americans of the Soviet-era diaspora. This is the kind of crap that neo-cons typically use to claim there is no such place as Palestine, there is no Palestinian culture or people, and Palestine naturally belongs to the big bully next door. Shame!

I agree with you Philothustra. What is really astounding is that the Ukrain was promised that if they gave up their nuclear arms they would never have any of their lands taken away by Russia. The Russians gave the Crimea to the country of Ukrania and now took it away.

Ukraine is not majority Russian, mostly Russian or even significantly Russian.

I don't see anyone seriously claiming that Ukraine is majority Russian, only that CRIMEA is majority Russian. The Westerners who demanded Tibet's right of self-determination do not now recognize the same right for the Crimeans. Why? Because the Crimeans are trying to vote for the "wrong" people, i.e., not the Washington-anointed side.

When the people of Gaza had the chutzpah to vote for members of Hamas instead of the hopelessly corrupted Palestine Authority (as had been predicted by people who actually understood the situation), George Bush went apeshit and insisted that Abbas overturn the election - an act which had absolutely no legal legitimacy - and then claimed that Hamas had perpetrated a coup. That whole episode hasn't really worked out for anyone, has it?

What this new "crisis" was really all about at first, as I remember it, was whether Ukraine could be bribed or extorted into seeking entrance to the EU. Considering what that august body has inflicted on the Greeks, et al., and that member countries are talking about trying to leave, you have to wonder who in the Ukraine, apart from crooked politicians, could possibly think that this would be a good idea for them. The IMF offer made to them was a typical neo-liberal trap.

From the first moments that the Berlin Wall was being dismantled, the Reagan admiinistration was determined to f*ck up the economies of the former Soviet countries so that no form of Communism could ever be reconstituted. An entire Russian criminal class of oligarchs was created as a result of this privatization and conditions went rapidly downhill for the working class.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as being that you keep doing the exact same thing expecting different results - a good definition of Ukrainians who want to join the EU.

The internet is the only remaining place where multiple sources four the same story can be obtained. CBS,NBC,ABC are not much better than CNN or Xox for low information content, misinformation and pure propaganda. All are run by a very few companies run by very right wing billionaires who use the news to sway influence to increase their own riches.

Sadly there measures afoot to manipulate the internet. That situation is fertile ground for totalitarianism.

Does anyone read history? The Ukrainian anarchists proclaimed a republic in nineteen seventeen -eighteen raised an army, fought Many sided war with the: Whites, the Reds, various foreign armies. Trotsky the hero of Kronstadt, used treachery to massacre the unruly Ukrainians and Stalin made an example of the Ukraine by using famine to starve millions to death. There was almost total resentment of Moscow by the remaining population who welcomed the Germans, then fought in the slaughter at Stalingrad and the starving at Leningrad. The wonder was that there was anyone left to kill. Winter and exhaustion of the German army defeated the Germans. and the Red Army destroyed the German State. American money and expertise played a major role in Stalin's victory.The Ukrainians rebuilt their country with awful divides and he left right march of the oligarchs has not helped their fate sealed by the Autocrat Putin. The left American press was no help with understanding the confusion that Russia used to take over. Another defeat of the truth by the IS dominated left media.

cordleycoit.......since murdock - a uber neo-con - owns over 90% of all the media outlets in the US, how could you possibly have anything but a right-wing media here?The only left-wing media is right here on RSN. It is here that a free-flow of information (and yes mis-information) flows. But at least there's a flow.

The illegitimate Prime Minister of Ukraine is telling the Russian speaking people of Ukraine, as a means of calming them down, that Ukraine has no intentions of joining NATO. I personally don't believe him. Perhaps in the short term, while there is still unrest and instability in the country, they'll refrain from joining NATO and getting involved with illegal U.S. wars of aggression and truly losing their identity and their sovereignty and independence. The article even accuses Yanukovych of the sniper attacks in Kiev even after that leaked conversation between the Estonian official and the high-level EU official.

This article shows heavily armed masked men in front of the Ukrainian parliament protecting the parliament from pro-Russian protesters. If you read the article, it states that these men along with many others fought in Afghanistan for the U.S. against the Afghan people. They're veterans of the Afghan war and were proactive in the overthrow of the Yanukovych govt.

So it seems that Ukraine doesn't even have to become a member of NATO, the U.S. puppet proxy army in Europe, in order to fight in the illegals wars of aggression for the U.S. and NATO.

Any analysis of what happened and how has shown the media, especially OUR media, itching to blame the "crisis" on Russia and Russia's fear of NATO. That is the fear our government and some European governments want to acknowledge but the truth is NATO doesn't really have that kind of clout anywhere EXCEPT in the propaganda fantasies of our NSA, CIA or Joint Chiefs of our military units. And there is really not a damn thing that we can do about the Crimea. Putin knows that, knew that, and merely wants to state the obvious: Crimea is a part of the Soviet Union.., oh, Russia, as it has always been. But Obama is playing to the hard core conservatives...and to the lesser Democrats, trying to look like a president willing to risk war to bend Russia to his will. We are so duped!

Exactly - NATO is relic of the cold war - completely useless, but very profitable for military industrial complex. Look at military expenses - USA wastes over 40%, Russia like 4%.

You say that NATO is a relic, but the United States isn't, and NATO and the U.S. can be used synonymously, interchangeably. There are very powerful individuals in the U.S. who are more than willing to push Russia to the wall, and, with enough pressure on Obama by the likes of idiots like John McCain, they could very well trigger the end of the world. The United States is the head and the brains behind NATO and NATO is the body doing what the brain (the U.S.) demands.

Now Biden has jumped into the fray with veiled threats towards Russia, and the current illegitimate PM of Ukraine is threatening to seize Russian assets inside Ukraine proper, possibly even the vast pipeline network running through Ukraine which is owned by Russia's state-owned natural gas giant Gazprom. Reference the following article:

A key point not reiterated in Parry's present piece but mentioned often by him in his previous posts concerns the role of US neocons in engineering the Ukrainian coup. Although she did not comment herself, Rachel Maddow outed this role weeks ago by reporting her scoop of the leaked telephone conversation of State Department primadonna neoconna Victoria Nuland and US (Ukraine) ambassador Pyatt. That conversation afforded delicious details, including the neocon's choice of the new president ("Yas", not "Klitsch") in Kiev ! Of course this "choice" became reality. The coup precipitated Putin's invasion of the Ukraine as well as the events in Crimea. Now the US MSM vituperates against Putin and the Crimea referendum, but when was the last time any MSM source mentioned the smoking gun conversation between Nuland and Pyatt ? I haven't heard it.

This author is right on. Anyone with any sense would want to exit Ukraine. While others regions previously under communism have done reasonably well economically over the last quarter century. In Ukraine, they have been just treading water.

This is not the first time that the US government (and the oligarchs who call the shots) has accepted, supported, and aided fascist regimes. Many will not remember that, in 1936, when Spain's democratically elected government was threatened and overthrown by a fascist (who was aided in his coup by both Hitler and Mussolini), the US and its allies stood by while Franco grabbed the government and imposed a fascist dictatorship for 40 years. Can any of us forget September 11, 1973, and the overthrow of Chile's democratically elected government by a pack of thugs who was aided by the CIA, and the subsequent take-over by the fascist Pinochet who was supported by the USA (and who was responsible for the deaths and disappearances of hundreds of thousands of opponents? And what about Zelaya in Honduras? That Obama should welcome Yatsenyuk, the new, illegitimate neo-Nazi Ukrainian leader into the White House is not at all surprising! This is what we do.

And let's not forget Mossadegh, Arbenz, Lumumba, et al., all democratically elected, who would not kowtow to Washington and paid the price. Because they were all painted as "godless Communists" by the US government and its lapdog media, Americans quickly fell in lockstep without having a clue about the real facts on the ground. And we wonder why we get terrorist attacks like 9/11 and the US is hated around the world.

The historic Ukraine-Russia conflict precedes by centuries the 20th century East-West conflict of which it is also part. For centuries, Ukranian Kiev and Russian Moscow vied for control of what is now Russia. Although Moscow won, Ukraine has always preserved some degree of autonomy and has always desired independence.

The conflict is fratricidal; Ukranians and Russians are more similar than different. Both are Slavic; speak similar languages written in Cyrillic; are mostly Orthodox, not Catholic; and are viciously anti-Semitic.

After the 1918 Revolution, Ukraine was viciously oppressed by the Soviets; Lenin and Stalin killed 6 million land-owning peasants through deliberate famine. During WW2, caught between two oppressors, some joined the Russians and fought the Nazis, others joined the Nazis and fought the Russians. After WW2, the USSR extended Ukraine westward, into what had been Poland and Hungary, as a barrier between the West and itself.

The rush to judgement of which Parry accuses western media is as much fog of war as rush to judgement. Yes, there are neo-Nazi groups and nationalists among those who got rid of Yanukovich, but it's unclear how influential they are. Just as in Syria it's unclear who fired nerve gas, in Ukraine it's unclear who fired on whom. Let's neither ignore nor blame Ukranian Nazis until we're sure.

Similarly, Parry's criticism of western media coverage of Ukraine, and his parallels

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